I just dont get why people on this site ignored that a dem mayor might lie..and that you might get 50 inches..and not 20. Some places in houston are already at 35 inches...another foot on the way.
It just blows my mind. A law firm who wont say a warning post was fabricated...just might have been telling the truth about a city council meeting
I live here, and I don't think he lied, Democrat or Republican.
Early on, the models were uncertain. They were a spaghetti bowl of paths; some of them went north, others went back into the gulf, and a few stalled at various locations. This was the definition of the "worst case scenario;" the storm stalled west of Houston and the "dirty side" kept throwing bands of rain at us. It really is a "black swan" event, a 500 year flood, if you will.
Nobody acts on the <1% probability event. They note it, they may have a contingency in place just in case, but you plan for the >10% probability scenarios.
I think it's a very real possibility that they remember the evacuation of Rita (photos of stalled cars on the freeway are posted elsewhere), and were more afraid of a scene like the Roman chariots in the Red Sea from The Ten Commandments.
You have to remember that Houston is flat, and the ground is mostly clay-based soil that doesn't absorb water too well. The Houston freeway system is designed to be a water catch-basin to prevent the neighborhoods from flooding during "normal" storms. I shudder at the thought of evacuating people stuck on the freeways as the water from Harvey begins to fill the roadways.
This was a no-win situation for decision-makers. For every possible decision, the downside greatly outweighed upside.
-PJ